Guess What?!..... Baeleigh's Going to Be A Big Sister

It took two positive (though I'll give him somewhat faint) pregnancy tests and one visit to the OB/GYN for Tommy to believe that I was pregnant with our second child. And, whether he wanted to believe me or not then, I knew I was even without those tests. This is a sonogram of Baby at about 9 weeks. Kinda looks like a little dinosaur with a big round belly. The heartbeat is strong and every thing looks great. Baby is due to arrive July 16. Of course, we'd like to have a little boy to complete our family, but we'd be just as excited for a healthy, happy baby no matter if it's a boy or girl.

We almost feel as if this'll be like our first experience with Baeleigh. We've sort of forgotten about the sleepless nights, frequent feedings, and endless diaper changing. Diapers seem like so long ago, even though we only gave up Pull-ups back in February. I'm sort of looking forward to it though. It isn't often that I get cuddle time with Baeleigh any more. Miss Independent is "a big girl now". I never really minded the late night feedings anyway. We're crossing our fingers that we're as lucky with this baby as we've been with Baeleigh. She sleeps well, has a great personality, is very social and has really turned into my little sidekick. We're very fortunate. We wonder will paybacks be in the next child? Naaahhhhhhh...

Santa Comes Down the Chinimey

This is really the first year that Baeleigh has really understood the concept of Santa Claus. But ask her what she wanted this year and you'd get quite an interesting response. It might consist of one thing she might actually want like a baby doll, then it would quickly switch to things like "a car, a truck, a house, a tree". In other words, whatever she passed by...say, in the car. Hopefully, this means she'll come to appreciate what I like most about Christmas - spending time with family, celebrating our health and happiness together.

Last year, we had four houses to knock out in one day, including our own, which was very trying for us, especially with a 3-year old. There's only so much Christmas you can take in one day you know - at least the gift opening part. We never really felt like we could relax and enjoy being around our friends and family. It was more just a mad rush to get to the next house. So, this year we decided to have my parents and Shaun join us for Christmas morning at our house. And, although this only cuts out one house for us, it made a world of difference. Tommy and I still had our sanity intact by House #3 - my Aunt Vickie's - and Baeleigh was still raring to go. Granted, she's one year older now to and that helps too. I hope we can continue this tradition next year. I'll just have to take over the hash brown duties until my Mom masters the non-stick pan.

I thought I'd share a little video of Baeleigh tutoring us on how Santa gets the gifts in our house, "Santa Comes Down the Chinimey". I can't seem to figure it out though. Her version of "chimney" reminds me fondly of my Grandma's Southern "Chimley" pronunciation. Love it. I wish I could also share Baeleigh's version of "Okey Dokey" but unfortunately we didn't catch it (though I think Pop-Pop did). It was "Dokio". Hilarious.

As you can see, the child could not want for more. I think she got all she wanted and more. (Yes, it was a requirement to wear her pink boots with her pj's through the entire Christmas morning.) And, as for Tommy and I, we got want we wanted to, some cherished time together and enjoying family and friends.

P.S. Notice Maximus is already eyeing Baeleigh's stocking as she digs into it. I guess instead of sugar plums, he's dreaming of all the chocolate that might be left on the floor.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

NMRA Factory Stock Champion AND Rookie of the Year

Tommy and I flew down to Orlando to the 2007 National Mustang Racer Association's Award Ceremony for him to accept his award as NMRA's Factory Stock Champion. I think this is the first time I've had Tommy in a suit since our vacation to the Homestead. It was also the first time that I've seen him nervous in a long time. This would be his first speech in front of a very large audience. And, although he unexpectedly won Rookie of the Year as well, he did a great job on both speeches. It's a huge accomplishment to win both in the same year.

He thinks I don't know what I started, but I have a better idea than what he thinks -- as if he hasn't raced for the last seven years that we've been together. I'm glad I could be there to experience this accomplishment with him. I know how important this is to him and I'm excited to see him chasing his dream.

Here's to a new race season, which starts in just three short months.

ChuckaCheese, Where A Kid Can Be Kid

When I asked Baeleigh what she wanted to do for her birthday, her response was "ChuckaCheese". I had no idea she even knew what this place was, she'd never been there. I followed up with, "What do you do at Chuck E Cheese?" "Play games and eat pizza, silly!" Excuse me. ChuckaCheese it is!

With about 9 kids to help Baeleigh celebrate her 4th birthday, I had originally thought this would be easier than holding it at our house. I mean the birthday slot was from 2pm - 3:30pm. An hour and a half of pure chaos and it was all over, no clean-up! The older, wiser Crissy now knows better.

Mistake #1: Smartly avoiding the lunch hour, only to instead overlap the party with nap time (at least for Baeleigh).

Mistake #2: Thinking I could smoothly coordinate nine kids and parents through a well-choreographed 1 and a 1/2 hour party. Itinerary, i-shiminerary. I think that went out the door at minute 5 of the party, when I had about 2 kids actually in attendance.

Mistake #3: Assuming that my husband, the boy that never grew up, would be there to help me through this without running off to play video games himself (excuse me: winning tickets for Baeleigh). I think he played basketball for like 2, maybe 3, hours straight.

Mistake #4: Dreaming that I would get out of there in 1 and 1/2 hours.

I may have lost my sanity in the process, but in the end all that matters is that Baeleigh and all the kids had a blast. Baeleigh was DRAGGED out of ChuckaCheese around 5:45pm.

I'll note one last thing though: I commend Chuck-E-Cheese on their hand stamp system. Baeleigh and I were both marked with a invisible stamp so that if she left with someone she shouldn't be, the stamps wouldn't match and therefore she wouldn't be allowed out. If I had known what they were doing going in, I think I would have saved myself a lot of energy in worrying where my daughter had run off to next.

The Lost Photos

Some of you may know that I've just heard back that the files on my old PC's hard drive, which apparently imploded about a month or so ago, was not recoverable. (I'm hanging on hope that a second company might prove them wrong.) I was extremely upset since being the moron non-backer-upper that I was every picture that I had ever taken of Baeleigh resided on that hard drive. Spare me the "Crissy, what were you thinking?" I wasn't, clearly. Every moment in Baeleigh's life, every trip we've ever taken, all my files from my master's work....gone. Since then, I've been trying to scrape together what few photo albums I have, skimming Snapfish.com and Facebook to find what I might have uploaded onto the web. (Turns out this blog has another perk to it...if I had only done it five years ago.) In digging through the few photos that I happened to have on Facebook, I hit the jackpot. A picture that I took of Baeleigh in the hospital. One of my most treasured pictures of the lot. You can bet I've backed this sucker up a few times in several places by now.

Any pictures that I might have sent you over the years that you may still have, please send'em my way. Meanwhile, I'll be furiously saving all files that my mom's saved over the years on her computer. I think Baeleigh's photos might require a safety deposit box...

Monkey Princess

In typical Crissy fashion, I managed to make it to Baeleigh's Halloween Parade at her daycare about five minutes before it started. I raced into the school to find her, sad face and all, already lined up with just a bag in hand to begin parading through the office park. As soon as I saw her, "MOMMY!" she shouted and pointed at me. I've never done a changing so fast in my life. She made it just in the nick of time to join her friends in line and roll out the door! Sheew!!

She had the trick-or-treating deal down this year. And, with one more under her wing, she turned into a pro at it, running from one door to the next to get more candy. She had a ball! And, as you can see, it was difficult for me to get her to stand still long enough to take a picture! "Mommy, I gotta trickortreat!". Ok, sorry.

It was hilarious to watch her in that monkey suit. She had this way of walking, sort of leaning forward with these big heavy feet. Hiney sticking out. The added padding around the middle of the suit didn't help in trying not to laugh as she walked. Other parents were commenting, "Look at monkey, isn't she funny? Too cute!" Of course, few of them recognize me as her mom. So, I feel a little like I'm eavesdropping, but I get the impression that she's the social butterfly with all of them. The few that do know who I am have told me that Baeleigh hands out hugs every day when they come to pick up their own child. Only Baeleigh.

Anyway, with the majority of the girls dresses as princesses, I was worried that making my daughter a monkey for Halloween wasn't very feminine. When she saw it at Old Navy, I thought, "How perfect!" I mean it's her nickname afterall. I asked her in the car, "Baeleigh, would you have rather been a princess or a monkey for Halloween?" "A princess, Mommy." I can't win. Maybe next year. But she's my Monkey Princess.

We finished up the night trick-or-treating in my parent's neighborhood. Sitting on my mom's lap, we went down a few of our neighbor's long driveways. Although she probably only went to about five or six houses, she made out like a little bandit. Mainly this is because not many trick-or-treaters come around anymore in this neighborhood, yet they still all have bowls of candy awaiting the masses. Baeleigh, in turn, gets the motherload since she's the only one showing up. My parent's house included. I've got enough candy to stuff ourselves until Christmas! Some will have to go to the office!

The Tominator Wins NMRA Factory Stock World Championship

From the NMRA Website, "In the first round of qualifying, Tommy “The Tominator” Godfrey came out and ran a HUGE number. His 11.33 at over 119 mph is the quickest and fastest a pushrod has even run in the class. Big numbers from the rookie show that he wants that championship something fierce. Who says pushrods can’t hang with the Modulars in K&N Filters Factory Stock?"

For more details, visit http://208.122.20.138/forums/showthread.php?t=69239.

Hamming It Up

We took our annual family and Christmas photos yesterday. Instead of tormenting myself with an all day ordeal through Picture People, I decided to try out Barefoot Images, a photographer (Christine Meraklis) that my friend, Cindy, is friends with. We had a really fun and relaxing experience with her and I think we ended up with a bunch of great pictures to choose from. Here are just a few. If you want to check out her website, it's www.barefootimages.net. She took some fun ones of Baeleigh in a tutu, and might put one up of her on the site.

Five Easy Ways to Go Organic

Here's an interesting read for those new to the whole "eating organic" thing. This is actually kind of a concept that I've used in buying organic foods for our own family, and most especially Baeleigh. Milk is one the most important buys for me since Baeleigh drinks so much of it. Natural peanut butter has been a more recent addition after I heard how much sugar was actually in the conventional version. Baeleigh LOVES PB&J sandwiches. So, this seemed like a no-brainer. Now that I hear how much pesticide is used on peanuts though, I think I might have to stick to the organic brands.

If you are interested in buying organic but don't have a lot of money to switch over entirely (like me), this'll get you started...

"Five Easy Ways to Go Organic"
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/five-easy-ways-to-go-organic/?em&ex=1193457600&en=f7ccbdd30c8ed71a&ei=5087%0A

The Bobbleheads

Fun Ford Weekend, one of the last races of the year, and Baeleigh's first official introduction to the racing world. She's helped Dad out in the garage on numerous occasions. (As a matter of fact, the kid can probably identify more tools than I can.) There was a litte trepidation on my part, given that she's been scared before at the starting up of the Cobra, but boy did she prove me wrong.

Apparently, Bae had the idea that SHE actually would be doing the driving. After several "Why?" sessions later, she seemed resolved to just watch. Yeah right... Bae spent the day running after Dad, dodging in and out of the trailer, testing out Dad's ride, and walking around pretending to be a race car driver (hence the helmets). Corita and I dubbed them "The Bobbleheads". If it weren't for the fact that they were top heavy and prone to just toppling over, I think they would have worn those helmets ALL DAY LONG. The Bobbleheads passed out for a nap in the car somewhere late that afternoon. Thanks to the DVD system in the car. After a long weekend, Baeleigh was glad to have another trophy on brief display in her room with Tommy winning the Factory Stock class.

Pumpkin Patch Pilgrimage

Baeleigh made her first trip to the Pumpkin Patch with Mom and Dad in tow. We arrived down at Serenity Farms around 10:30am. It was a gorgeous and warm fall day, and perfect for the trip. We all got to ride into the farm on a huge hayride.

This was Tommy's first time playing chaperone and luckily we only got one kid to watch, Katie. An easy break-in for a first-timer and to get the feel of what it's like to have two kids to run after...or so he thought. Katie is a sweet little girl, but very - let's say - distracted. So, needless to say, the petting farm was a constant battle of keeping Baeleigh and Katie somewhat together. Almost impossible. Even more impossible was to get any of the kids to NOT run in the poop-infested pen. The kids were then greeted by (a very hairy and "well-developed") Dora, Blue and Barney to invite them into the haunted house. I'd tell you that the Katie and Baeleigh loved it but Tommy let them slip in way ahead of us. Rookie. So, I never saw her reaction. Both had smiles on their faces when we popped out the other side, so I guess everything was fine. That was a relief because some of the kids were scared in there. Baeleigh then made her way through the hay maze. I think she got a little confused from the other kids, as she was the last out.

Baeleigh was very choosy with her pumpkin pick, but at last this one above won out. We took it home and Tommy and Baeleigh worked hard that afternoon making it as scary as possible. She helped scoop out all the guts and then we put a candle in it and set it outside to scare everyone on Halloween night.

Why 2 Monkeys & a Bear?

Well, because "The Godfreys" was taken. But also because this represents our nicknames. Baeleigh is our little monkey. I'm Tommy's, and well he's my bear. Insert "blek" here. Regardless, it is what it is.

In this blog, I hope to share with you all our family adventures. I think this will make it easier for me to distribute fun photos and stories to everyone without sending out emails every time. And, you all can keep up at your leisure (or view it even when you aren't supposed to be at work). So, enjoy and please share your comments...